KIRKUS REVIEW

A cross-section of life in one Tripoli neighborhood, from a
wealthy resident to a housecleaner to a terrorist.

This brisk and affecting novel by veteran Lebanese writer Douaihy
(June Rain, 2015, etc.) is set during the early stages of the Iraq War
and follows three archetypal characters. Intisar is a housecleaner with four children and a
listless, abusive husband who clings to memories of old rebellions. She
meticulously cares for the home of Abdelkarim, the scion of a wealthy family
who has recently returned home from France in a melancholy funk, initially for
unclear reasons. But Intisar is more concerned about her son Ismail, who has
recently disappeared and who she fears has joined with insurgent terrorists.
It’s no spoiler to say that Intisar’s suspicions are correct: Douaihy tracks
how Ismail “seeped out” of mainstream
society, slowly transforming from petty criminal to member of a hyperconservative mosque to would-be suicide bomber. In the meantime,
Abdelkarim reveals an early adulthood of struggles to toe the family line,
ending an arranged marriage before heading for France, where he fell for a
ballerina; and Intisar’s own complex relationship with Abdelkarim’s family (not
to mention her husband and busybody neighbors) comes into sharper relief. As
American intelligence operatives more aggressively monitor the neighborhood
following Saddam Hussein’s capture, Douaihy suggests that outsiders might
understand the area in broad strokes but miss plenty of important nuances,
which has agonizingly divisive consequences. The novel is rooted in war and
terrorism, but its overall tone is composed, at times even romantic and comic,
more concerned with themes of disconnection than violence. Abdelkarim, he
writes, “develop[ed] the feeling that the world was somewhere he was not.” It’s a common affliction for
nearly everybody in this story.

A brief but rich story of lives intersecting because and in spite
of post–9/11 violence.

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